Family Pride eBook

But she could not stand there long without answering,
and so she ventured at last to say:

“Yes, I found Mrs. Wilford Cameron’s note,
and came around as she requested.”

There was nothing objectionable in that remark, while
the voice was very, very sweet and musical, so musical,
indeed, so like a voice heard before, that Mrs. Cameron
involuntarily went a step nearer to the stranger,
and even thought of calling up a servant to light the
gas. But that would perhaps be too great a civility,
or at least betoken too great a curiosity, and so
she forebore, while she began to question Marian of
her own and Mrs. Hubbell’s antecedents.
Both were English, both had worked upon the Isle of
Wight, and later in New York, at Madam ——­’s;
one had married, living now in New London, and the
other Stood there as Marian Hazelton, puzzling and
bewildering Mrs. Cameron, who tried to recall the
person of whom she was reminded by that voice and
that manner, so wholly ladylike and refined.

Marian Hazelton pleased her, as was apparent from
her expressing a wish that “as far as practicable
Miss Hazelton should take charge of the child.
We cannot tell how early life-long impression may be
made, and it is desirable that they be of the right
nature, and wholly in accordance with refinement and
good-breeding.”

There was a curl on Marian’s lip as she remembered
another meeting with the proud lady whose words were
not as complimentary as now, but she merely bent her
head in supposed acquiescence to the belief that Baby
Cameron was, or soon would be, capable of discriminating
between a nurse refined and one the opposite.
There was a moment’s silence and then Marian
asked if baby had been christened?

“Not yet, we cannot decide upon a name,”
was the reply, while Marian continued:

“I understood your daughter that it was to be
Genevra.”

Marian Hazelton was growing too familiar, and so the
lady deigned no answer, but stepped a little to one
side, as if she would thus indicate that the conference
was ended.

Dropping her veil entirely over her face, for the
servant was now lighting the parlor lamps, Marian
turned toward the door which Mrs. Cameron opened,
and she passed out just as up the steps came Wilford,
Marian’s skirts brushing him as she passed, and
her heart beating painfully as she thought of her
escape and began to realize the danger she incurred
when she accepted the office of partial nurse to his
child.

“Dark, mother? How is that? Why is
the hall not lighted?” she heard him say, and
the old, familiar tones, so little changed, vibrated
sadly in her ear, as she dashed away a tear, and then
hurried on through the darkened streets toward her
humble home, so different from the Cameron’s.

“Who was that, mother?” Wilford said,
expressing regret that he had not happened in a little
earlier, so as to have seen her himself, and asking
what his mother thought of her.